Astronomy and weather go hand in hand as anyone who's tried to watch a meteor shower or a lunar eclipse in Oregon can tell you.

But keeping fingers crossed and eyes to the skies, Oregonians will have at least a fair chance of seeing both in the upcoming weeks and months.

On April 14, shift your gaze from that income tax return and see if you can catch the first of two lunar eclipses this year.

According to starman Jim Todd of OMSI, beginning at 9:55 p.m.: “The full moon will slide through the dark shadow of the Earth and for 73 minutes the only light hitting the moon will be a reddish glow from all of Earth’s sunrises and sunsets resulting in a total lunar eclipse.”

Todd said that weather permitting (see?), OMSI will host an eclipse viewing party beginning at 9:30 p.m. at Milo McIver State Park in Estacada. The Rose City Astronomers and Oregon State Parks will have telescopes set up and Todd will give informal talks on both the eclipse and the night sky.

On the scheduled day of the eclipse, call the OMSI Star Parties Hotline at 503-797-4000, then press #3 and then #5 for updates. You can also check the OMSI Star Parties website for possible weather-related cancellations.

Also that night, according to space.com, Mars comes within 57.4 million miles of Earth, its closest approach since January 2008.

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A week later, the Lyrid meteor shower is expected to peak in the early morning hours of April 22. Ten to 15 meteors an hour are expected to streak across the night sky. Weather permitting.

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Tracking snowpack can be done in a variety of ways, from Sno-Tel sites that measure the snow’s water content by weighing it remotely to “ground-truthing” (measuring in the field using a large, long hollow tube and weighing that). It can also be measured from the air, thanks to NASA’s Airborne Snow Observatory, or ASO.

Using lidar and a solar spectrometer, scientists since April 2013 can determine the snow water equivalent based on the reflected light from the snowpack. The observatory has come in very handy for water managers in California this season.

Speaking of water, February and March rainfall in Oregon was off the charts in many locations, easing drought conditions and bringing what looked to be a pretty bad ski season back from the brink. Some areas in the central Oregon Cascades from Jan. 1 through March 31 saw 400 percent of their average precipitation.

“NASA's Cassini spacecraft and Deep Space Network have uncovered evidence Saturn's moon Enceladus harbors a large underground ocean of liquid water, furthering scientific interest in the moon as a potential home to extraterrestrial microbes.”